


shade our faces from the sun

by soulgraves



Series: Blam Week 2015 Fills [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Blam Week, Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Post-Graduation, Pre-New York, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulgraves/pseuds/soulgraves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s in a motel bed with Sam Evans somewhere that’s not Ohio and not New York, and the further they get from either the easier it is to breathe.</p><p>[For Blam Week 2015, Day 1: road trip.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	shade our faces from the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Set during S5, post-graduation and pre-New York. This took a far angstier tone than I'd intended.

Sam leans forward to change the station, and Blaine pushes his sunglasses further up his nose and breathes in the air from the open passenger window, watching the world speed by. He’s lost track of where they are but Sam seems to have some idea, pulling out actual paper maps whenever they stop for food or sleep, and if Momma and Papa Anderson ever found out their son was crashing in road-side motels with broken ice dispensers and flashing neon signs they’d lock him up and throw away the key. 

His shoes are somewhere under the dashboard, abandoned a few hours ago, and his small suitcase is running dangerously low on clean clothes; the contents of Sam’s duffle are spilling over onto the back seat, all cotton t-shirts and blue jeans and hooded sweatshirts, and Blaine’s hit with the thought that Sam’s more suited to this, the American Dream of asphalt and gas stop Slushies, endless days stretched before him to the soundtrack of a dozen different local soft-rock stations. Maybe that’s why he’d agreed so quickly. Maybe it’s why Blaine came up with the idea in the first place, to play spectator to a beautiful boy’s golden summer like a coming-of-age movie he can pause before it ends and he’s reminded that his own life is rushing ahead too fast for him to process.

“We’ll find somewhere to stop soon,” Sam says, and Blaine hums, pushing his shoulders back and feeling his muscles object. The first day he’d talked non-stop, only breaking to sing along to the radio and see how many times he could make Sam laugh, ignoring the way Sam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and pointedly didn’t call Blaine out on trying too hard. It was exhausting, though, and he gave up five days ago; now when he talks it’s because he has something to say, and there’s a freedom in that he didn’t know he was looking for.

“I could eat,” he says, and Sam shoots him a grin and signals at the next junction.

 

**~**

 

There’s half a dozen missed calls on his cell when he remembers to plug it in, and he feels that deep guilt in the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat that makes him want to respond straight away, the same way it’s been doing for days, but then Sam’s coming out of the bathroom, sweatpants hanging low on his hips and a towel around his neck; the glow from the Taco Bell across the street falls like a backlight so all Blaine can make out are the shadows his hands cast as he runs fingers through his hair, and Blaine lets his cell fall onto the side table and reaches for his wash bag.

He’s not sure he’s ever appreciated showers as much as he does after days in Sam’s truck, the stifling heat making a mockery of the broken AC. When he finishes, Sam’s flicking through the few working channels on the TV, settling on a cooking show and turning the volume down low, and Blaine slips onto his side of the bed, careful to keep just enough distance between them for his own peace of mind. It’s too hot to get beneath the sheets and Blaine’s glad for it, clings to the empty air around them like armor and pretends he doesn’t want to know what it would be like to share that intimate space with his best friend.

“Hi,” Sam says, rolling onto his side, and Blaine smiles.

“Hi.”

Sam watches him for a long moment, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “So a road trip with my favorite dude is pretty much my perfect summer plan,” he says eventually, “but—”

“But?” Blaine says, and knows that Sam’s gone above and beyond not to bring it up before now.

“I thought you’d want to get to New York as soon as you could,” Sam finishes, and Blaine sighs because yeah. That’s the crux of it all. Blaine’s supposed to be in New York right now, supposed to have taken off as soon as he’d shaken his parents’ congratulations post-graduation, supposed to be unpacking his clothes into spare drawers and registering for Fall classes and mediating whatever fight Rachel and Santana and Kurt are in this week. _Supposed to be, supposed to be, supposed to be._

Instead he’s in a motel bed with Sam Evans somewhere that’s not Ohio and not New York, and the further they get from either the easier it is to breathe.

“No,” Blaine says, and he knows that he at least owes Sam an explanation after he packed up at a moment’s notice just because Blaine asked, but then Sam reaches out and nudges his shoulder and Blaine realizes that, no, he doesn’t have to say anything because Sam gets it. Sam always gets it.

He swallows hard and pretends he doesn’t hear his cell vibrating across the room.

 

**~**

 

Sam picks up a pamphlet of local attractions at their next stop, and they spend a couple of hours playing tourist, Sam snapping pictures of Blaine on his cell whenever he’s not expecting it, and by the end of the day Blaine’s laughing, trying to snatch the phone from between his fingers as Sam holds it out of reach, his free hand resting lightly on Blaine’s arm or back or waist to keep him from losing his balance and leaving Blaine flustered and happy.

They change into their least creased clothes, taking turns crammed into the back of the truck for some pretence at privacy, and then shell out on dinner at the fanciest restaurant they think will let them in; Blaine doesn’t mention the credit card his mom handed him when he said goodbye, but when Sam goes to the restroom he slips it to the waiter and ignores Sam’s protests about paying his share when he comes back.

“You’re keeping me company,” Blaine says, batting Sam away as he tries to slip twenty dollar bills into Blaine’s shirt pocket, “it’s the least I can do.”

“Yeah, this isn’t _Pretty Woman_ ,” Sam says, and Blaine laughs, surprised. “I’m here because I want to be. What else was I going to do with my summer? Sit around in someone else’s house in Lima? Sit around in someone else’s apartment in New York? This is, like, a thousand times better than any of my other options, dude.”

Blaine stills, or he means to, except he’s reaching out for Sam and pulling him close, and Sam goes with it, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and holding on tight. They stay like that in a parking lot in God Only Knows Where, America for too long, and there are a thousand reasons Blaine should step away except not a single one of them resonates as true right now and so he doesn’t, not even when Sam sighs into his hair, fingers pressing against Blaine’s shoulder blades, and Blaine realizes with a start that he’s the happiest he’s ever been. 

A car alarm goes off up the block and Sam lets go.

“We should find a place to crash,” he says quietly, and Blaine nods as the world floods back into place.

 

**~**

 

Two weeks turn into three and they spend the night on a ridge, Sam pointing out the constellations through the windscreen, truck seats laid back as far as they’ll go. Blaine’s wearing one of Sam’s sweaters and the sleeves are falling down over his fingers, too big and too soft and smelling too much like _Sam_ to be anything but comforting.

Blaine’s learnt this trip that Sam can fall asleep at the drop of a hat so he’s not surprised when he starts gently snoring between one sentence and the next, face turned in towards Blaine and arms wrapped around his own body. Between the moon and the light pollution Blaine can still see the way his eyelashes flutter as he dreams, lips parted and hair sticking out from under his hood, and he tucks his chin further into Sam’s borrowed sweater and tries not to let his mind wander.

His cell buzzes in his pocket and he ignores it, only checking it after it’s gone silent again. He has a new voicemail, the first since those early days, and he bites his lip and slips out of the truck, careful not to get too close to the edge of the ridge, crossing his legs as he sits down on dewy grass.

He listens to the message through, and then listens to it again, over and over until his cell warns him his battery’s about to die, then he gets back into the truck, shutting the door as quietly as he can. Sam’s already blinking awake, though, and Blaine grips the sleeves of the sweater harder and doesn’t speak first.

“You okay?” Sam whispers, voice sleep-deep and a welcome relief.

“Kurt called off the engagement,” Blaine whispers back eventually.

He doesn’t say how angry Kurt sounded, the words _’selfish’_ and _’coward’_ thrown through speakers like blades. Doesn’t say that Kurt thought he was _supposed to be, supposed to be, supposed to be_. Doesn’t say that it’s the call he’s been waiting for since he chose to run away with his best friend instead of run towards his fiancé.

Sam watches him for a long moment, then says, “That’s what you wanted,” and Blaine’s lungs deflate because it’s not a question and Blaine has never loved another person more.

“How did you know?” he asks, and it’s a stupid question but Blaine’s been stupid about everything for so long it seems inevitable.

“Dude,” Sam says fondly, “Blaine. My math may suck, but I’m a hundred percent sure that if you really wanted to get married, you wouldn’t be _here_.”

Blaine’s an awful person; it’s not the first time he’s thought that and he’s sure it won’t be the last.

He’s an awful person, but right now all he feels is _free_.

 

**~**

 

It’s only when Blaine recognizes the dessert menu in a truckstop diner that he realizes they’re heading back to Ohio, and Sam grins and shakes his head and makes a string of terrible jokes about Blaine being lost without him. Blaine doesn’t feel ready to go home, but Sam reminds him that they’ve both got more belongings than what’s currently bundled up in the backseat, and that unless he plans to start actually making a dent in the Anderson’s bank account, they’re running out of disposable income fairly quickly.

“Besides,” he says, ordering a slice of cherry pie for them to share, “you have to get ready for school.”

“I can’t go to New York now!” Blaine frowns.

Sam laughs and spreads his fingers between Blaine’s on the booth top. “It’s a big city, dude,” he says. “Besides, I have my awesome modelling career all mapped out and I’m not going without you.”

Blaine stares at him and Sam stares back.

Blaine’s spent so long trying to play catch up with his own future that now he gets to just _be_ it’s overwhelming - not the suffocating, blindingly overwhelming from before, but the sort that comes with the realization that he can actually do what he wants, when he wants.

“We could get our own place—” he says tentatively, and Sam’s smile is blinding.

He knows he went about this all the wrong way, knows he acted like the teenager he is rather than the guy mature enough to propose to someone he pretended he could be, and he knows that someday soon he’s going to have to make amends for that, but right now Sam’s smiling at him like _that_ and he can’t remember what it is he’s supposed to regret.

 

**~**

 

They stop outside of Allen County, renting one last room even though there’s no reason to. Blaine showers whilst Sam goes out, coming back with gyros and juice, and they sit back against the headboard and make a mess of their fingers, laughing at each other until they’re breathless.

Blaine’s phone’s sat untouched in his bag for days, but Sam digs his out and puts a playlist on shuffle, flinging it onto the nightstand without checking his own messages. Blaine knows he’s had dozens, but Sam hasn’t mentioned them, and Blaine’s not even sure he hasn’t just been deleting them unread.

He really doesn’t know what he did to deserve this boy.

Sam’s in the middle of a Thor impression, spurred on by whatever song just played, when Blaine says, “I love you.”

“I love you too, dude,” Sam says, nudging Blaine’s ankle with his own, and Blaine shakes his head and smiles.

“No,” he says, “I really love you.”

Sam sighs. “I _know_ ,” he says, and his own smile is a revelation. “ _I love you, too._ ” 

Blaine closes his eyes and counts to ten and when he opens them Sam’s still looking at him, eyes glinting, and so Blaine does the only thing he can do _(the only thing he wants to do)_ and kisses him.

It’s chaste and gentle, little more than a touch of lips, and Blaine lets it linger and linger and linger—

 _Free, free, free,_ echoes through his head like an anthem, and when Sam’s hand slides across the curve of his neck, pulling him closer, he lets the future dissolve behind his eyelids and kisses his beautiful golden boy back like _right now_ is the only thing that will ever matter.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [tracing constellations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7432059) by [vexedcer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer)




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